a quicksilver interval lodestar tonic

	It was a quicksilver interval covering fifty-plus thousand miles behind the wheel alone, alone & not, veering between rounds of advice & instigation from altered egos scrounging for a lodestar tonic. 

For instance: 

	A two-lane mountain road cut through a dense hippy brume to arrive at a wooden outpost. The venue suggested we back-in-park for load-in in case there's a need to leave in a hurry, explaining it's a biker bar & sometimes things get bikery. 

On a pole near the entrance, a Xeroxed poster, with a picture of a wiener dog smiling like it hears a can of dog food being opened, explains the dog has been assassinated, shot in the head, & they're looking for who did it. 

A small coterie of club vests arrived with dates. Tensions were challenged briefly, but stayed seated as we packed up to head downhill towards the desert.

A year later, the bar burned to the forest floor. 

	A gamey motel desk clerk with scratches on their face & neck & holding a cat warned, "Don't pet the cat. It scratches.” 

A casino sushi boat happy hour turned out to be a fixed regatta of mostly rice. 

	It was hot for spring when we arrived in a parochial basin for an afternoon load-in. Doors were locked. We left a phone message with the promoter. To kill time, a nondescript bar around the corner offered A/C & a doorman wearing a Gap logo tee repurposed with other letters to write out “God Answers Prayers.”

We were alone in the quiet, empty bar until two older frontiersmen squinted in together from the daylight. Although there were many other empty stools, they separated to sit directly on each side of us  The bartender told them that the entertainment was late due to traffic. They ordered beers & just stared silently ahead until music suddenly came pounding on & an announcer, sounding like the DJ on a fairgrounds Flying Bobs ride, declared with cavernous reverb, "Gentlemen, start your penises, the dancers have arrived!”

The promoter didn’t call back. We tried the doors of the venue one more time, then left town, driving towards higher ground. 

	An overseas flight landed in 24-hour light without my pre-war Kalamazoo parlor guitar, stolen from a connecting tarmac along the way. At a downtown music festival, I borrowed a friend's vintage archtop & played standing until I stepped on the cord & a chunk of wood surrounding the jack fell to the stage floor. The friend played piano that night instead.  

From a payphone afterwards, the airline reported that they had no record of my checked baggage as the bars closed down for the evening in full light shadows under a midnight sun. Drunks stumbled out, kissing new or lost-love last goodbyes & chased each other down the street like children when school has just let out in the afternoon on the first day of Summer.

	We crossed the Alabama River to an isthmus & a place not named on the roadmap, guessing its vague location from a map in a coffee table tome about quilts. 

A small series of streets lined with same last names led to an otherwise indistinct building with the sign “Gee's Bend Quilt Collective.” The community center door opened to Arlonzia & an open room with a large table surrounded by children working on various crafts. Lining the walls, elderly women talked & stitched or just sat with hands folded or gesturing in a formation of loose supervision. No one in the room was aged between ten & seventy. 

Arlonzia showed us in to a walk-along past strata walls of patterned quilt folds forming a structure of unending sample, then invited us to her house to see her quilts. As we were leaving together, she told my tour mate that the other women "think he's pretty.” 

We followed her on streets that seemed to almost cul-de-sac but kept moving. Inside Arlonzia’s place, there were five or six rooms besides the kitchen & a bathroom never seen, each with one or two twin beds. Walls were papered in old newsprint with framed mementos or photos hanging. 

She pointed with a forefinger as long as a staff towards one of the beds, ordering me to pull out stacks of quilts from beneath & lie them on top for viewing, which was done like obeying a grandmother showing which chore is expected next, opening so many marvels. One, she said, was made from brown corduroy pants that an art dealer from NYC had offered her thousands for though she'd paid just pennies for the pants at a thrift store, seeming like she thought it was funny but also not. 

She said to go see Qunnie, who had some that were cheaper, with directions to follow the street to where there will be “a man in a fenced yard with chickens” & inside will be Qunnie, who “doesn't go out much.”  She pointed her staff-finger in the direction, giving a fading goodbye while turning to leave as if there was something on the stove that needed to be checked on & maybe there was. 

	The man in the yard with the chickens waved us on towards Qunnie’s door. Knocking, a shy woman allowed us in though we were strangers, showing her work & letting us leave with an exquisite patchwork prize. She said goodbye from behind her screened door & we followed the path to the gate. The man was now in a side yard, chickens moving in a spread of spasming parade.